The battle for the soul of economics

SFI Professor Sam Bowles and External Professor Herb Gintis were among the "young radical economists" at Harvard in the late 1960s whose skepticism about the mainstream paradigm has since gained credibility, according to a feature in Adbusters magazine.

These young academics believed the economics profession was ignoring the important questions and being "instrumental to the elite’s attainment of its unjust ends,” the article says.

"Among them, the most notable case was that of Sam Bowles, one of the brightest economists of his generation, as confirmed by his later work. His tenure candidacy was rejected by a nineteen to five vote in 1973. He had received the support of the most prominent members of the department, J.K. Galbraith, and Nobel-prize winners Wassily Leontief and (yet to be) Kenneth Arrow. Albert Hirschman was one of the other two who voted in his favor."